State agency ex-director to pay $100,000 in revolving-door case

Tribune illustration

Tribune illustration

Ray Long and Maura ZurickTribune reporters

SPRINGFIELD — The former head of an Illinois government agency has agreed to pay the state $100,000 in a settlement after being accused of violating a so-called revolving-door clause regulating officials who leave and take jobs with state contractors.

Barry Maram, former director of the state’s Department of Healthcare and Family Services, resigned from his state post in 2010 and took a job a week later with the law firm Shefsky & Froelich, after the administration had contracted with the firm to handle a legal dispute over the expansion of health insurance coverage for children, according to settlement documents released Friday.

The office of Executive Inspector General Ricardo Meza found that Maram had violated the state ethics law’s revolving-door provision because he joined Shefsky & Froelich within the required one-year waiting period and the firm had a contract that exceeded the law’s $25,000 threshold to represent the state, including Maram as director of the agency. The contract was for up to $150,000 a year, according to the documents.

Maram, 68, who did not admit to wrongdoing or liability in the settlement, started the state job in February 2003 under ex-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who is now in prison on corruption charges. Maram left his $142,330-a-year state job in April 2010, more than a year after Gov. Pat Quinn rose to governor when Blagojevich was removed from office.

The inspector general sent the matter to Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s office, which reached the settlement. Because Maram held a high-ranking state job, the law allowed for a penalty multiple times a person’s new private salary for the job inside the revolving-door’s one-year window.

The $100,000 settlement was much higher than prior fines of $5,000 for ethical misconduct, according to Chad Fornoff, executive director of the state Ethics Commission.

Fornoff said the $100,000 settlement sends a “very big message,” a point underscored by Madigan’s office.

“This is a very significant penalty that should … signal to high-ranking public officials that violating the state’s revolving-door provisions comes with a high cost,” said Natalie Bauer, Madigan’s spokeswoman.

Maram, whose firm has merged with Taft Stettinius & Hollister, took no questions but issued a statement Friday, saying, “I have never compromised my integrity or the public’s trust.”

He said he had received opinions that interpreted the law in his favor. But after four years, he said, he has decided to “settle the matter in order to finally put it to rest.”